When the Rūḥ Meets Its Creator: The Qurʾān, Gender, and Visual Culture in Contemporary Iranian Female Sufism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Decision: Accepted pending some revision.

 

This is an extremely fascinating article that readers would absolutely enjoy reading.

The main concern is the lack of correspondence with pre-modern Sufi thought and sources. The two female masters discussed in the paper could be isolated from the broad Sufi culture and their work should be connected to its ancient roots. There is an apparent lack of references to early literature.

Further suggestion to improve the paper are in line:

1.      I would suggest moving the reference to the interrelationship between Sufism, Qur’an and gender back to the Introduction. The reader has to understand more smoothly this idea earlier in the paper. It is clearly explained in the Conclusion.

2.      There is a crucial need to locate the discussion into a broader framework of Sufism itself. An introduction that refers to visual culture in pre-modern Sufism would be very important.

3.      The reader needs to know what are the components of visual culture when the Sufi context is involved. The visual translation of piety has ancient roots in world religions and mystical trends including tasawwuf. Currently, this aspect is entirely unclear.

4.      The “aesthetic-emotional experience” also needs to be located within the broad Sufi heritage. This is not restricted to contemporary Sufism and thus, a reference to its roots is needed. I would suggest introducing sub-chapter dedicated to this idea, its ancient roots, representations and the references to it in scholarship including the question: why it is important for socio-religious studies today.

5.      Page 6: “From my knowledge of contemporary Sufism, the Quran is also seen as a mirror”, this needs references to pre-modern sources.

6.      Page 8: “becoming absolute” (Hadāvand 2016), but it is also an expression of her pro-298 gram to enact Sufism in society”. This needs further elaboration.

7.      Page 10: References to pre-modern female Sufism are missing. The work, teachings and agendas of the two female masters have a lot in common with female mystics of early medieval Islam (relevant sources: Sulami’s Dhikr al-niswa, Ibn al-Jawzi’s Sifat al-safwa, Aisha al-Ba’uniyya’s works…). The only reference in the article is to Umm ʿAlī (the earlier reference to her story with Bastami is Hujwiri’s Kashf al-maḥjūb).

8.      Page 18: “epistemology and pedagogy aimed at the holistic transformation and development of the human faculties. When the human self (nafs) is trained, developed and transformed, an immediate realization of…..”, this needs references to primary sources.

 

 

Author Response

See document attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

See document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf